


Sorry to Disturb You

by NonnieRobot



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, During Canon, Homophobic Language, Horror, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Multi, Religious Guilt, Repression, pennywise sucks fuck that guy, some of the other losers make a brief appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 21:50:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20280382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonnieRobot/pseuds/NonnieRobot
Summary: Eddie goes on his walking tour to the church on Neibolt Street.





	Sorry to Disturb You

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been thinking a lot about what Eddie’s solo adult scene with Pennywise will look like in IT Chapter 2 and this is the result. A couple lines of dialogue are straight up lifted from the novel, so thanks Mr King for that. This is supposed to be scary and shit but who knows. Maybe it’s just gay and sad.
> 
> Title from the song “Dear God” by XTC. Warning for fatphobia in Eddie's internal monologue (mostly from the book, Eddie has a lot of unkind thoughts about Myra’s and his mother’s size). Apologies for any Christianity/church-related inaccuracies. I did minimal research and it's been over a decade since I actively particpated in practicing religion.

Eddie finds himself walking towards Neibolt Street, following the childhood compass lodged in his gut. He feels a fleeting impulse to whistle with his hands, re-create an old childhood memory. He shrugs the feeling away.

Neibolt, though the memories are still slightly foggy and out of focus, sends an unexplainable jagged terror spiralling through him. He felt it after Mike called him. Felt it again at the Chinese restaurant, remembering Pennywise clearly for the first time in decades. Even the thought of the Clown is enough to make his airways almost reflexively narrow.

He gets as far as the intersection between Turner and Neibolt Street before freezing, unable to walk any further. Eddie knows, without a doubt, it is not time yet. For what, he isn’t sure.

_The Clown – Pennywise – was here. Or near here. Definitely close._

A memory, clearer now, begins to surface; the path he walked _that day_ coming back to him. Right where he stopped, unchanged from back then, is Derry’s own Methodist Church. What was clean and almost modern looking in the eighties now looks a relic of its time. Out of date, scuffed, sagging in on itself (like Eddie's skin, although Myra insisted on a vigorous slathering of creams and moisturizers every morning and night to keep him from developing a bad rash. He has such sensitive skin - could break out in hives at any moment.)

Of all the elusive milestones of Eddie’s past, going to church is relatively clear, in the vague blurred together way most regular childhood memories are. Not something he thinks about often – and if he sometimes has seemingly source-less, uncomfortable pangs shoot through him when church is mentioned? It’s just that Eddie is prone to hot flashes, that’s all.

His mother was in no way a devout woman. She dragged the two of them out of the house on seemingly random Sundays, unless there was some sort of charity drive, bake sale or important holiday sermon they could _never_ be seen missing. Although the exception, as always, was making sure Eddie felt well-enough,_ you know how delicate you are Eddie-bear_. It was certainly good enough attendance that Sonia could still smugly inform godless individuals that _of course_ she goes to church, what kind of woman do you take her for? It is ever so important to instil good morals in her sweet, sickly boy’s young and impressionable mind.

Somewhere along the line, he cannot remember exactly when or why, Eddie became aware of a creeping flush of shame sweeping slowly over him, stepping into church. He began to get heavy aches in his stomach if the priest’s eyes stayed on him too long (probably his easily upset digestive system).

Each Mass he sat squished into his mountainous mother’s side, sweaty-palmed, gripping sides of his starched-stiff good trousers. The building anxiety that the Sunday School teacher, who was very fond of smacking desks with a ruler in loving remembrance of the Good Old Days, was watching him. Waiting to see that guilt Eddie could not explain and announce it to the world.

Eddie grew to despise the word sinner, tensed in anticipation of it to crack down on his head._ Sinner, it’s a sin, don’t you know, Eds? The fires of Hell are waiting for you, all you got to do is jump_.

Sonia Kaspbrak had a particular fondness for the word, sampling it on her rubbery lips. Never came close to her usage of _sick_ or _ill_, which she could rapid fire at Eddie for hours, but there was certainly a flavour to _sin_ that helped enhance her own informative gospel.

Fortunately for Eddie, Sonia, more and more weighed down with age, grew tired of the shuffle on Sunday mornings when there were shows to watch, health articles to read, and all other manner of important things to do. Church visits were reduced to zero by the time they left Derry and Sonia’s sole connection to Christianity was a barely touched Bible.

Although, Eddie heard enough chatter from his mother about sin whether he wanted to or not to make for years’ worth of missing Mass. _Didn’t he hear about what those queers? Their mothers ought to have raised them better. Don’t they know it’s immoral and wrong? The Bible says-_

Except here Eddie is in Derry, in his forties, and his mother is dead and gone, and the Church door is open. Waiting.

Mike said to follow his instincts, think like a kid again. At least he’s still stuffed full of pills, just like then, because what is Eddie Kaspbrak without that? His hand automatically fumbles for his inhaler, hooked in his pocket like always. He clings to its smooth, familiar plastic but leaves it be, and slowly steps forward.

The faint sound of an organ playing leaks out the open door. A thought crosses his mind that he could turn around right now. Walk all the way out of Derry.

Underneath the music – and what is it? Some sort of religious hymn? A wedding march? – a voice rings from the open church door – deep and ominous in a way Eddie cannot quite explain. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…"

He does not stop moving towards it, although he finds himself muttering under his breath: "Oh god, am I really gonna crash a wedding? What the fuck am I doing this is not a good idea, none this is, I fucking hate Derry. Couldn't we have implemented a buddy system maybe? God I'm gonna be that jackass that just walks in uninvited, I should stop, I am not Richie fucking Tozier stumbling my way through any door open for longer than three goddamn minutes, I should… I…"

Yet here Eddie is, stepping over the threshold and everyone is going to look at him and his mother’s voice screams at him to turn back. Leave his awful friends and return to the loving embrace of his wife. Another voice, quieter but no less determined whispers. You must, you _must_.

_Man the fuck up and go IN!_

Eddie goes in. He mentally prepares for incredulous stares, maybe some shouting or-

Only there's no one here to shout. The pews – those same uncomfortable, hard wooden benches – sit empty of guests; no priest stands in the pulpit; there's no nervous, shifting groom; no giggling bridesmaids or stoic groomsmen.

The music has stopped, and Eddie is alone. His skin prickles, sharp and sudden, across the back of his neck.

Almost without conscious thought his eyes scan the room as he walks further in still, searching for something. Maybe his paranoia is getting to him, but he swears he can almost feel invisible eyes drilling into him, murmuring from unseen corners: intruder, intruder, you don't belong here.

His focus lands on the jarring spot of bright colour in the beige, fading navy, and wood decked interior - the stained-glass window at the back of the hall. It is something of a point of pride for the local church goers, the rather enthusiastic committee in early seventies rallying the funds to have it commissioned. The scene it depicts is a rather stereotypical one: a few angels, all blonde hair and white wings; Jesus is for sure somewhere in there; and what Eddie thinks is maybe supposed to be a nativity scene. Only it’s not the greatest stained-glass piece in the world, generic enough it could fit several Bible passages if you use your imagination.

If Eddie squints, he can just start to make out a strange splash of red in the corner. Damn, he’s getting old. Should have brought his glasses. Maybe it’s an apple? Or a red balloon?

Red balloon… why is that so familiar?

A woman steps out from nowhere to obscure the view, back turned to him, and Eddie instinctively jerks back. She looks like the bride, here for the non-existent wedding, wearing an extravagant white wedding dress. From where Eddie stands her form seems huge, towering almost unnaturally tall and wide, haloed by a colourful glow.

Eddie opens his mouth to say something when a shrill beeping noise strikes up in the background, painful, alarming and swelling louder with each beat. The bride begins to walk backwards, away from the window. With her legs and feet hidden beneath the skirt’s expanse, it almost looks like she is floating. She seems to shrink down with each step – warping until she looks human sized again.

A loud wet sob rings out that makes Eddie’s heart twist, pulse pounding wildly in his throat. The woman is shaking, shoulders hunching, and Eddie can barely stand to look at her. He starts to step further in, coming up to the aisle, even with his better judgement violently protesting. “Excuse m-”

The door slams behind Eddie, making him stumble, as the bride whips around to face him.

Myra, his wife.

Tears drip down her face, staining her round cheeks. The wedding dress she wears bunches and stretches around her figure and Eddie can almost picture her crying as she furiously tries to get it to sit right. It is not the Myra from their wedding day (thank god there were no tears that day, then they’d both have cried, and she would have held him so tightly it would hurt and he feels _sick_-). It is the Myra he left behind in their apartment in New York, who begged him to explain what was going on. She is bigger than back then, so much like his mother when they lived in Derry.

“Don’t you love me Eddie-bear?” Myra Kaspbrak wails. She stalks forward, practically flying down the aisle. Something is clutched to her chest, buried in folds of white and he feels his lungs grow tight, shrivelling the closer she gets.

It can’t be Myra, not here in Derry. He never told her where he was going, he just left! He left her! She can’t be here. Not in a wedding dress, not in a church and sobbing and barrelling towards him like a freight train. He wants to assure her of course he loves her, wants to ask what the fuck she’s doing here, wants to run, needs his inhaler. Oh god, he’s going to die he can’t breathe he can’t even fucking move!

He’s holding his inhaler! Use it you fucking idiot! You goddamn moron! Breathe!

Then Myra is in front of him, clawing at his arm and eyes bulging as she screams; “Eddie, don’t you love me? Please! EDDIE!”

Spittle flies into his face. Eddie wheezes.

Myra’s other hand, still squeezed against her chest, draws back and opens, revealing a garish assortment of pills. Some spill from her palm, rattling as they hit the floor, as she shoves the rest into his half-opened mouth. Eddie instinctively tries to press his lips together against the onslaught, but Myra is too quick.

The pills fill his mouth, far more than should have been possible for her to force down. He chokes and gags around them, the slick coat of medicine clinging to his throat. He half-coughs, half-vomits, the pills tumbling out of him in a disgusting spray.

Myra continues to bawl, even as a few pills stick to her face and chest like colourful spots of disease. A near neon pink capsule slithers down her cheek in a trail of his glimmering, thick saliva.

“Eddie, please! You’re sick! You’re _sick__!_ Eddie, you need to take your medicine! You’re sick but I can make you better, Eddie _please!_” A couple of the pills are shaken loose by Myra’s cries, clattering loudly.

He hacks out a breathless; “_Marty!_” as he looks up at the wild, pleading mess of his wife. Only it isn’t his wife, can’t be.

It isn’t real.

Myra keeps on talking, blubbering; “Now we’re married, I can fix you Eddie! _Just let me fix you! Take your MEDICINE!_” and Myra grabs his shoulders so tightly he practically feels his bones creak. He gasps in pain as she yanks him into her embrace, smothering his face in her bosom.

His eyes feel hot, throat still closed tight, as he freezes in her hold. Eddie tries to speak, no idea what he wants to say, and all that comes out is a muffled, vague “_muh!_” sound.

“Now, now, there’s a good boy, Eddie-bear,” her voice is simpering and loud and suddenly Eddie wants nothing more than to get away. He starts struggles against her iron grip when she pulls him up to face her and it’s his mother.

Sonia, dressed in a tracksuit, looking as though she never aged these past twenty-seven years – never died – smiles down at him, digging her fingernails through his jacket and into his skin. Eddie feels thirteen again, feels tiny as her cold eyes stare down at him, even though she isn’t real either. It’s all the Clown again, it must be. She chuckles softly.

“Oh, Eddie. I always knew you were sick. I tried so hard for you, but you never loved me, did you? Knew you were rotting on the inside, always sinning, always dirty. Acting like a filthy fucking fag. Those disgusting boys got you _so_ _sick._”

“I’m not- Mom-” There’s something lodged in his throat and it _hurts so much. No, no, nononono._

“Take your medicine for me, alright sweetie? You don’t want to end up like the rest of the dirty queers, do you?”

Her eyes burn into him and Eddie still can’t fucking breathe. Dazedly, Eddie realises he's started to tear up, staring horrified at his young-again mother. Maybe she will put her hands around his throat and squeeze. But no, that would be quicker than his slow suffocation every day, that would be mercy. Sonia Kaspbrak's mercy comes on her terms.

The ghost of his mother stares him down, skin becoming paler, drooping and wrinkling. Her hair goes grey and the presence of Sonia seems to grow even larger, nearly swallowing Eddie whole as she expands up and around him. Desperate to get away, he needs to goddamnit, he yanks back with all his strength, bucking wildly to escape the aging-before-his-eyes expanse of his mother. But Sonia lets go.

Eddie falls, head _thwack_ing on the floor. He scrambles to his feet, groaning, trembling, and his mother is nowhere to be seen. His breathing comes out in short, whistling pants as his gaze darts around the room.

_Escape, escape, he needs to get the HELL OUT OF HERE!_

Loud banging snaps Eddie’s attention back to the stained-glass window, now shuddering angrily in its frame. The Bible scene blurs, then moves, shifting with sharp cracks, like bone breaking. Another picture begins to form – a face, or an approximation of one: nose caved in, bandaged, pus and ooze leaking, curled lip, red boils, rashes flushed dark and raw, a single eye glazed milky, swirled with blood and oh Christ.

“What are you looking for?” the leper in the glass growls and with a crunch a hand (rotting, red and greyed skin, nails blackening, and _real_) shoots from glass to flesh, reaching for Eddie. The head follows, cracking and rippling into reality, and the rest of its body, drooling and hungry and crawling towards him. It drops to the ground with a wet thud, face turning up to him. Eddie immediately draws back, gasping and gagging, as the leper shuffles forward unnaturally fast on its knees, mouth warped into a gaping grin. “Do you want a blowjob, Eddie?”

The leper’s face bubbles, remoulding with deep squelches that makes Eddie shudder. Skin reknits and tissue grows and then Bill – adult Bill with grey in his hair and a tired, worn, but still handsome face – is on his knees, smiling, smiling. “I’ll b-b-blow you for a dime.”

Eddie realises he stopped moving for a second and staggers backwards. Bill becomes Mike.

“Even do it for free.” Mike winks and a maggot worms out of his eye socket.

His back hits the door painfully hard. Mike becomes Ben.

“Whaddya say, Eddie?” Ben licks his lips, inching ever closer, maybe only a few feet away now. Eddie struggles to find the doorknob without taking his eyes off It (_It’ll get me if I look away, I know It will, oh GOD_.) When his hands close around it he desperately tries to get it to turn but it won’t fucking _move_, and Eddie looks away for just a second.

“Eddie.”

_Richie_.

His eyes immediately find Richie, now standing over him, that same soft, cocky grin he always gets when he knows he’s got something over Eddie.

“_Eddie_,” Richie repeats, singsong and mocking. He slowly sinks to his knees and Eddie can do nothing but watch, heart pounding in his ears.

It’s been so, so long and they aren’t kids anymore but of course Richie came in wearing a fucking leather jacket of all things, filled out by now broad shoulders, and a frankly ugly mustard yellow shirt and Jesus Christ with _stubble_ what the fuck. Richie, with his stupid jokes and stupid Voices, and Eddie missed him, by God did he miss him.

Quietly, looking at a now forty-year-old Richie across the restaurant, his heart ached for all that time Eddie had spent _not_ missing him. He should have missed Richie, all the Losers, for all twenty-seven years they weren’t together, but the fucking Clown took that from them too.

“You’re not-” and God, Eddie _hates_ how hoarse (weak) he sounds.

“You want it, don’t ya Eds?” Richie says, so sweetly.

“_Stop, please_.”

“You wanna be fucking _sick_,” and as Richie talks, his flesh begins to grey and rot, his left cheek crumbling inwards to show off bleach white bone, skin becoming patchy, slick with mucus, hives crawling up his neck. One of his lens shatters, glass embedding itself in his eye. “I’ll give ya a blowjob, love.”

Richie’s hand, dyed sludgy black with thick, clotting gunk, paws gently at Eddie’s pants leg. He sighs dreamily and blood drips from his lips. Eddie can feel the cold sludge seep into his clothes, into his skin. He forces himself even closer to the door.

“_No_,” Eddie whispers.

“I’ll do for a dime,” Richie whispers back. Eddie notices a bright red pill perched on his tongue. “I will do it anytime. Fifteen cents for overtime.”

The doorknob turns.

With an explosive kick, Eddie knees fake-Richie in the face, using the momentum to swing the door open behind him, slide around and sprint out. As Eddie runs, choking breaths barely rattling out of him, he hears laughter. At first, it’s Richie’s cackle, the very same one he heard at dinner, but it morphs into something higher pitched, screaming out after him, and Eddie knows it’s Pennywise.

“Sick little Eddie!” Pennywise yells between peals of wild laughter.

Eddie runs and he doesn’t look back.

Once the laugh fades into nothing and Eddie feels something resembling relief (even though nothing in this town is safe, not here in Derry, no sir) he collapses onto the grass, lungs twisted so tightly closed he’s dizzy with it. He shakes so badly he can hardly manage to get a grip on his aspirator, then nearly gags himself in his rush to get a hit.

Inhale. Exhale. Ah fuck.

Eddie looks down at the inhaler in his hand. _Just like old times, eh pal? You and me, my shitty lungs and the Clown_. He thinks about laughing. Doesn’t.

His heart is still rabbiting away far too fast, which the mom living in his head informs him means he is dying and simply must go find a doctor _right now_. Eddie focuses on slowing his breathing first.

He vaguely wonders what he would say if one of the others asked what he saw.

“Oh yeah guys, It just turned into my wife, then my goddamn mother, then all of you offering to fucking _suck my dick! _Except Beverly of all people, the only girl! And Stan, because he’s fucking dead! Ha, isn’t that weird guys? Aren’t you so glad to be back with a sick freak who’s fucked in the head?”

That would go great.

How the hell is he even going to look any of them in the face? Especially Richie, fuck, not when Eddie can already feel his entire face burning and his stomach attempting to fling itself out of his mouth just thinking about it.

So, Eddie may be shaking again. Maybe crying. Great, just great. Absolutely great.

Great.

Step number one for dealing with this maybe should be: _don’t fucking think about it_. Don’t think about his fucked-up relationship with his wife, or how he never stood up to his mother after the gazebos incident (which he didn’t even remember until he was back in Derry, thanks for that Clown). How he went crawling back to his mother three times after leaving, because he is the most pathetic man alive. Don’t think about the leper, his friends knowing, Richie on his knees and-

Step two: meet back at the library.

Eddie can do step two.

Eddie also realises he has been hunched over on the ground for some indeterminate amount of time while he freaked out. No one is around at least, which either means nobody saw a middle-aged man having a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the street, or someone saw but didn’t want to deal with aforementioned situation.

On legs that feel moments away from snapping in half, Eddie manages to stand up. He smooths down his clothes and hair into something potentially presentable and begins the trek to Derry’s library and Mike Hanlon’s place of work. Somehow, without knowing where he is, Eddie knows which way to go.

In his head he sees Richie, with an almost loving smile.

_You wanna be fucking _sick.

He keeps walking.

**Author's Note:**

> Eddie: I am Definitely Straight and I love my female woman wife, amen.  
Richie, played by Bill Hader in a leather jacket: *exists*  
Eddie, world’s most repressed twink: What if we kiss but as like a joke bro… hold my hand but in a dude way…
> 
> I think this will look very different in the upcoming film but when I saw a picture of James Ransome in what kind of looked like a church, my brain immediately went ‘it’s free real estate.’ Excited to see this made into an AU in less than a month by IT Chapter Two's release.


End file.
